94% of councils that have voted vote to retain Maori wards. Many of them are National background Councillors and previously urged Central Government to not push ahead with the legislation. The forced local referendums are now expected to cost ratepayers and take away from Council workloads
Australia’s Prime Minister Albanese is trying to get actual indigenous representation into the Australian Parliament with a referendum. Going to be tough.
While Sturgeon’s strong leadership and vision have helped build support for Scottish Independence, the Conservative and Unionist Party’s arrogance and self-serving incompetence in government have greatly aided her in this.
There is now growing recognition internationally that the right to a dignified death is a fundamental human right. Assisted dying is not about reducing health care costs or pressuring those who are frail, old or disabled to end their life prematurely. It is about allowing those with a terminal illness the choice to die rather than face a period of significant physical decline and suffering before the end of their life.
A group of more than 350 people have applied to the High Court to try and void the reeferendum result.
One of the other results from the final results on was the reeferendum. The loss was minuscule in the final results. If I was the yes campaign, I’d be considering pushing this to another referendum soon. It was so close, that the result was mainly due to being run with Covid-19 in the background of the campaign, a unreadable proposed bill, and a surprisingly well funded No campaign.
Which way are the Greens going to jump?
The referendum seeking to decriminalise cannabis appears to have failed narrowly although special votes are still to be counted.
Maria Hoyle of Socialist Aotearoa argues that from a socialist perspective the legalisation of the possession of cannabis should occur.
A well funded organisation has emerged from nowhere and is potentially having a significant effect on one of the referendum topics this year.
Ten reasons to vote against cannabis law reform this election.
The island of Bouganville has just had a vote towards independence from Papua New Guinea. The result has interesting similarities with the Brexit vote.
The referendums on two contentious issues could cloud and crowd out the General Election.
The Green Party’s launching of a petition to seek changes to the electoral system has met with some Trumpian style rhetoric from the right.
A timely reminder that we replaced FPP for very good reasons.
Nicolas Sturgeon to seek the authority of the Scottish Parliament to agree the details of a Section 30 Order that will allow the Scottish Parliament to legislate for an independence referendum.
Is it time for a referendum on marijuana? There is strong support for the use of medicinal marijuana. Should we just admit that Kiwis like smoking dope and simply legalise it?
Some context for the debate.
Next week the voting on part two of the Key Legacy Project © begins. We’re being given a choice between the outdated and the bland. The Butcher’s Apron or the Tea Towel. Do you care?
John Key’s $26 million dollar flag flop bores it’s way to the halfway line tonight. The first referendum closes at 7 PM, first results at around 8.30. $26 million … that’s a lot of cancer drugs, child care centres and elder care we won’t be getting because the PM wants a signature legacy his dreary leadership doesn’t actually deserve.
What to do with these ballot papers that just arrived in the mail?
Today the government announced the four candidates for John Key’s vanity flag referendum: three ferns (one of them the logo of Immigration NZ and the Companies Office) and a koru. And really, all I can say is “meh”. So how about defining a good way of doing a informal or invalid vote on this stupid first referendum on selecting John Key’s underwear..
The increased use of petitions is a very clever innovation by the Labour Party because this Government has proven to be a weather vane lot, guided by polls.
If you were the NZ government, with $26 million to spend, what would you spend it on?
The Conservatives have made a complete cockup of their “bottom line” for making a deal with National about going into government. They want to make referendums legally binding on the government. It is something that no rational government in NZ would agree with because it is impossible from several different criteria. Andrew Geddis points out that it is pretty well impossible without changing the legal basis of our government. I just think that the questions for our referendums have been complete crap.
The 18th of September 2014 is a big day.
On that day, people living in Scotland will decide if they want to become citizens in a nation that will have reclaimed its sovereignty.
Look at how deeply unpopular National’s asset sales program is even in their own MP’s electorates. To illustrate the point that Matthew Hooten can’t read numbers, I’ve displayed it in turnout order. South Island and National held electorates generally turn out far more than Labour or Auckland urban electorates in postal votes. But most National held electorates especially provincial ones voted almost two to one against Nationals asset sales program.
Rob Salmond at Polity has had a look at the effectiveness of National’s deliberate strategy to discriminate against Maori and Pasifika in the […]
It never fails to amaze me that supposedly experienced and professional (ie, paid) political figures routinely reaffirm a fairly deep sense of stupidity.
Rob Salmond runs the Polity blog and has given us permission to syndicate his posts. Long time readers will remember him from the brilliant posts on 08wire.org during the 2008 campaign, so expect us to often find something of interest.
Like this post looking at who voted No on the referendum. That number of previously National voters must be scaring the National party at present.
So according to John Key, turnout in the referendum is so low it doesn’t mean anything to him (despite his government working hard to get turnout down). But he reckons it does mean David Cunliffe needs to promise to buy back the assets..?
This is the last day that you can vote No in the referendum on asset sales. So dig that form out, mark it and send it. This referendum vote is a clear way to send a message that even a self-serving delusional National MP can understand. Being able to form a government is not a mandate to do whatever you feel like with our assets.
John Key set us a challenge on the referendum: get more an a million ‘no’ votes. That would mean more votes against asset sales than National won in 2011. So far, so good. The Electoral Commission has processed 805,204 votes. Doubling that would be an outstanding result that would almost certainly mean a million ‘no’ votes. Get your vote in now.
NZ Herald editor/s selectively reports, omitting the full facts, in favour of the National government. It misrepresents the referendum on asset sales, ignoring significant facts – thereby also seeming to discredit the Green Party, the referendum, & democracy.
The Electoral Commission has reported receiving and processing nearly quarter of a million referendum votes per day on Wednesday and Thursday this week. All up, 530,000 votes are in so far – an impressive 17.50% turn out already. That’s far better than you would expect from a council postal ballot at this stage. Now, let’s get the rest in.
